FinnJet causing a stir in Palm Beach.

If you can’t buy the Finn Jet, maybe consider one of these instead.

The Avanti’s story is as unique as the design that came out of Raymond Loewy’s studio in Palm Springs, Calif. nearly 50 years ago. Here are some tidbits:

Celebrity Owners

The Studebaker Avanti was a favorite with the rich and famous. Owners included Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Ricky Nelson, Rod Serling, Sandy Koufax and Dick Van Dyke. Superspy James Bond debuted a gadget-laden Aston Martin in the 1965 movie, “Goldfinger,” but Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, was an Avanti owner. So was Shirley Bassey, who sang the film’s hit theme song. Reggie Mantle drove his uncle’s Avanti in the Archie Comics “Pals’n'Gals” winter 1962-1963 issue.

Fast? Yes

In its supercharged R2 form, the Avanti was indeed a quick car. In 1962, Road & Track Magazine went zero-to-60 in 7.3 seconds in an R2. Motor Trend’s R2 test car did the quarter-mile in 15.8 seconds at 91 mph. On larger modern tires, an Avanti R2 should be capable of zero-to-60 in about 6.5 seconds — on par with a new Cadillac CTS.

An Avanti could reach 170 mph — the right Avanti in the right hands, that is. The Avanti that set 29 production-car speed records at Bonneville was a rare “R3” model with an engine specially built by Indy racing entrepreneur Andy Granatelli. He also drove the Avanti into the record books. The R3 was technically a “production” model, but just nine were built with this expensive option. Thirty years later, a group of Avanti enthusiasts returned to Bonneville and set a D-Production record of 195.640 mph.

From Avanti to Ponzi to … Avanti III?

Studebaker dealers Nate Altman and Leo Newman rescued the Avanti in 1965 and built it in low numbers as the Avanti II (usually under 100 per year) in the former Studebaker plant in South Bend, Ind. until 1983. The only key difference was a Chevrolet small block V8 engine in place of the Studebaker V8 (a Corvette-spec 327 or 350 until the early 1970s).

Altman and Newman sold the company to Stephen Blake, whose stewardship ended in bankruptcy in 1986. Real estate developer Michael E. Kelley was next, and he added a convertible to the line. Kelley sold Avanti to John J. Cafaro, who moved the operation to Youngstown, Oh. in 1989. Cafaro added a four-door model based on an original Raymond Loewy design. In its last few years of production, the Avanti was built on a Chevy Monte Carlo chassis. The last car was built in 1991.

Kelley has been back in the news. Since 2008, he has been in prison awaiting trial on federal charges of bilking investors out of over $400 million in a real estate ponzi scheme involving vacation properties in Mexico.

Attempts to resurrect Avanti have come and gone, including one that used re-skinned Pontiac Firebird body shells (320 built from 2001 to 2004) and then the 2005 Ford Mustang (46 built). Tom Kellogg, the sketcher on Loewy’s original Avanti design team, designed those cars. The company appears defunct, although its website is still up.

The Avanti’s Bonneville speed record adventure is documented in a period-kitschy five-minute promotional film. Parts of the soundtrack sound like they were recycled for the 1968 movie, “Planet of the Apes.”

Jensen Interceptor (foreground); Jensen FF (background)

The March issue of my Wheel People newsletter profiled an example of brand loyalty that any carmaker might envy. Here’s the story, including larger and additional photos.

Mike Lotwis broke a 35-year streak last year when he purchased his company car, a Chevy Impala. Up until then, he had been a one-brand man, owning nine models from a single carmaker: England’s defunct Jensen. He’s owned five variants of the brand’s most famous car, the Chrysler-powered Interceptor.

Lotwis recently thinned his fleet, keeping only the 1975 Interceptor convertible shown above. I was fortunate enough to have driven it – along with his 1974 Interceptor saloon (not “Coupe” – that was a separate model). Though it weighed over 4,000 pounds, the Interceptor handled like a lighter car, thanks to stout chassis construction and near-50/50 weight distribution.

That drive was 21 years ago, when I was writing a Jensen story for Mopar Action magazine. Lotwis’s convertible had just returned from a restoration and major mechanical upgrade by Jensen Service and Parts in England. It still looks remarkably fresh today. You might catch a glimpse of him touring around North Jersey with his 12-year-old daughter in the passenger seat. And he still takes the car to club track events. (Photo below.)

Lotwis became captivated by the Interceptor in the 1970s while helping to maintain his college roommate’s 1971 model. He bought that car after graduation, and, a few weeks later, drove it in a 1,000-mile road rally. Immersing himself in all things Jensen, Lotwis started a Jensen club and became a tech support source for other owners. He bought up dealers’ parts stocks when the company ended production in 1976 and still has some inventory.

Mixed Parentage

Made from 1966-1976, the mostly hand-built Jensen Interceptor was an Italian-styled, Chrysler-powered, British-built luxury GT. Traditional Brit luxury included Connolly hides and Wilton carpeting. Jensen also boasted a custom coachbuilder pedigree going back to the 1930s.

The company built some 6,400 Interceptors and its variants. Official U.S. importation began in 1970. In 1972, a Series III Interceptor with its Chrysler 440 high-performance V8 retailed for $14,000 — about twice the price of a Cadillac Eldorado.

The convertible arrived in 1974; Jensen built just under 500. In all, fewer than 2,500 Interceptors came to the U.S., according to Lotwis.

An Interceptor variant not officially imported to the States (it was right-hand-drive only) was the FF. Lotwis owned the second-to-last of 315 built (photo, below). Introduced in 1966, the FF was the world’s first production car with full-time four-wheel drive (OK, limited-production). “FF” stood for Ferguson Formula, the car’s pioneering four-wheel drive system. A groundbreaking car, the FF also featured aircraft-derived anti-skid brakes – yes, in 1966!

Jensen FF (1966-1971) was first production car with 4WD and anti-lock brakes.

Lotwis owned another rare Interceptor model, the SP – one of the 13 with left-hand drive, out of 232 built (photo, below) “SP” signified Chrysler’s 440 Six Pack engine (high-performance, three two-barrel carburetors.)

Jensen SP was an Interceptor with the Chrysler 440 Six Pack engine.

Want One?

Interceptors remain quite accessible. I found a few cars on eBay, ranging from a couple thousand dollars for a “restorable” car to $17,000 for one needing “complete detailing.” Interceptor specialist K&D Enterprises in Snohomish, Wash. is offering a restored convertible for a less accessible $90,000.

Jensen Interceptor, as shown in 1974 factory brochure.

275 GTB/4 NART Spyder, Chinetti Motors, New York ... and "Lady"

If you’d like to tour the Ferrari factory, you need to own a Ferrari, or at least be a strong prospect. Bob Mittenmaier’s “Italia,” a Mazda Miata with a Ferrari-esque makeover by Simpson Design, would hardly qualify.

Yet Mittenmaier, from Demarest, N.J., has toured the original Ferrari factory at the invitation of Enzo Ferrari’s trusted lieutenant, Franco Gozzi. The VIP treatment was a thank-you for allowing Enzo to reprint one of Mittenmaier’s paintings in his autobiographical tribute to Ferrari race drivers, Piloti, Che Gente.

The painting, “48 Mille Miglia,” depicted the great Tazio Nuvolari driving a 166C in that race, in the pouring rain and with the car literally coming apart. The acrylic-on-Masonite work is one of about 40 Ferrari paintings that Mittenmaier has completed from his tiny basement studio since the early 1980s.

"48 Mille Miglia"

Painting, though, is not Mittenmaier’s day job. After earning a degree in fine arts from the University of California Berkeley in the 1970s, he went on to work in retail. He painted for his own enjoyment. For some 30 years, he’s been involved in home design. Mittenmaier has sold his paintings through Jacques Vaucher’s l’art et l’automobile gallery – the world’s first gallery devoted to automobile art – since its inception.

From Casino Royalty to Art Royalty
After college, Mittenmaier took a job in Harrah’s casino in Reno. As an employee, he had free entry to Bill Harrah’s amazing car collection. He made his first painted subject Harrah’s Thomas Flyer, the car that won the 22,000-mile New York-to-Paris Great Race in 1908.

Thomas Flyer, Winner of The NY-to-Paris Great Race

Upon moving to the East Coast with his wife, Jeannette, Mittenmaier sought advice from the automotive art master, Peter Helck. When the couple showed up unannounced at Helck’s studio in upstate New York, the acclaimed painter invited them in for tea and at the end of the visit invited Bob to paint in his studio.

Helck later invited Mittenmaier to paint his “Old #16” Locomobile. It was the first American car to win an international race, the Vanderbilt Cup on Long Island in 1908. Helck had used it as a subject himself. At an art exhibition at Lime Rock Park, Paul Newman tried to buy Mittenmaier’s “Old #16” but was too late. A woman who had bought up much of the artist’s early works had beaten him to it.

Picasso and Mittenmaier?
Mittenmaier’s paintings hang on the walls of Ferrari collectors around the world. Anthony Wang, former president of Computer Associates, reportedly owns most or all of Mittenmaier’s “Chinetti Impressions.” The dozen or so paintings in the series – two of which are shown here – depict Luigi Chinetti’s various Ferrari dealership garages in Manhattan.

Chinetti Motors, New York

A Japanese art collector once came to New York and went home with a Picasso … and a Mittenmaier. When Piero Ferrari organized an art exhibit to honor his late father, he invited Mittenmaier to send a painting and attend the opening at a palace in Modena, Italy.

Mittenmaier’s favorite subject, though, might be the scruffy shepherd mix seen in many of his Ferrari paintings. “Lady” was the friendly shop dog at the small Paterson, N.J. garage where he had his Fiat X1/9 maintained. When Lady died, Mittenmaier promised the shop’s owner he would make her famous. He did.

Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien won the 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Testa Rossa.

A Red Menace That You Can Drive Yourself – NYTimes.com

A People’s Car as Flawed as the People’s Paradise – NYTimes.com

Where Have All the Trabis Gone? – NYTimes.com

Enjoyable reading, if not enjoyable driving.

Well, mainly, I use the Trabant as an attention getter. The Trabant, a product of East Germany’s centralized communist experiment, ranks among the worst cars ever made. As a car enthusiast, it’s easy to find humor in that. Maybe better than any other symbol, the Trabant represented the great divide between free West Germany and oppressed East Germany. Mercedes-Benz from the West, Trabant from the East.

At the same time, the Trabant — “Trabi” for short — was also one of the most significant, and even heroic, cars of the postwar era. But let me first explain my connection to the Trabant.

Summer of ’74
In the summer of 1974, for my 11th birthday, my parents gave me “World Cars 1974.” You might remember the annual “World Cars” book series (a.k.a. “World Car Catalog”). These were thick, heavy, glossy reference books, published by the Automobile Club of Italy (and Herald Books in the U.S.), that cataloged every car made in the world. They stopped publishing them in the 1980s, I think.

The book cost about $25 in 1974, which is over $100 in today’s dollars. (You can still buy used copies at low prices.) That was a lot of money for my parents in 1974. But I think they knew immediately that it was my favorite gift of all time, and indeed, an investment in my future.

I didn’t just read that book. I studied it. I pored over every photo and every spec – first of the cars I was most interested in, and then all the cars I’d never even heard of. That was the first I’d learned that a Japanese company called Mitsubishi made a sporty car called the GTO. And that Australians could buy a Ford musclecar that looked like a blend of 1970 Torino and 1971 Mustang.

I wore that book down, literally. Within six months the book jacket was breaking. And it even helped me in school. In sixth grade math class, I received a homework assignment (at random) to compare three low priced family sedans with three exotic sports cars.

The assignment card suggested the project might take a long visit to the library to find and compare about 12 different specs among these cars. I had a week to turn the work in. I opened my “World Cars 1974” and had all my specs in about an hour. I created a comparison table (with ruler and pen in that pre-Excel era) in about another hour. I actually felt a little guilty, since I didn’t even need to calculate the weight-to-power ratios; “World Cars” had that spec, too.

End of the Road
But back to the Trabant. After I’d pretty much memorized the specs for all the American cars and the “foreign” car brands that I recognized, I started looking at the obscure cars like the Trabant from East Germany, Hindustan from India and the various communist-country FIAT and Renault cast-offs. I remember saying something to my father like, “Why would anybody want cars like that? They seem so primitive.”

And my father, who still had relatives in communist Czechoslovakia, simply said, “That’s what they can afford.”

Those five words told me all I needed to know, without going into any geopolitical discussion (well, at least one that an 11-year-old could grasp). I got it.

Smile by Photoshop

I received several more “World Cars” books after that, but I didn’t really give the Trabant another thought until 1989. Eastern European communism was crumbling. The Berlin Wall was coming down. And what did we see on TV? East Germans streaming through newly opened border crossings, on foot, on bicycles and in Trabants.

Two years later, the Trabant was featured on the cover of U2’s seminal album, “Achtung, Baby,” and the band used a giant mobile made from empty Trabant shells on the supporting tour. To me, that really symbolized the end of the Trabant’s journey.

By the way, I get the photos for my “Trabi cards” from iStockphoto.com, where a number of photographers have posted images of these cars. Last year, I did spot a blue Trabant in an empty lot in Tarrytown, N.Y., near the waterfront.

JK

The Fireball was the Ferrari of pedal cars, with was a tube-frame (just like a real racecar!) and chain drive. It was a lot faster than the “push/pull” jobs. Plus, it looked cooler — like a miniature version of the front-engine Indy roadsters that were raced into the ’60s.

I have only two photos of the Fireball, including this one. Both are Polaroids — my father had the kind before the SX-70, where you had to pull the photo out of the camera and wait a minute for it to develop before your eyes. As I recall, Polaroid film was pretty expensive. The photos held up reasonably well for their age, but I had this one restored by Best Photo Repair. Cost was $30 and turnaround was a couple of days.

Like lots of toys, vintage pedal cars have their own following, including folks who restore them and sell parts for them.

The Fireball has apparently grown up, too. My next post will show the 21st century adult version.